Agnes Grey

The novel, a long prose narrative telling a fictional story, became the dominant literary form in 18th-century England, replacing the Neoclassical movement’s characteristic formal poetry and satires. Popular early novels were adventure stories, like Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), or described a young man’s coming of age, like Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749). A favorite trope was the young woman in adversity, established by Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740), which was a runaway bestseller.

The trend in the latter half of the 18th century favored the “sentimental novel” or the “novel of sensibility,” which aimed to stir the reader’s feelings through intense emotional experiences. These qualities infused the Romantic literature of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Romantic ideals focused on individual, inward passions and struggles, celebrated the impact of natural surroundings on the senses, and showed a general preference for imagination and feeling over order and intellect. In the 1790s, a hugely popular genre, the Gothic novel, drew on pseudo-medieval settings and used sensational events and occasional violence to evoke an atmosphere of mystery and terror.

Richardson’s Pamela, with its focus on events within one household, broke ground for what would be called domestic fiction or the domestic novel, which takes the family or house as its focus. Jane Austen’s novels, first published in the 1810s, continued this trend, staking out a turn in interest toward more realistic portrayals of everyday characters and events. Many Victorian novelists, including Charles Dickens, engaged with realism, social issues, and moral frameworks influenced by Christian ethics and the values of a growing middle class. In this framework, the virtues of self-control, intellect, reason, and moral behavior were more admired than an excitable or impressionable nature.

Agnes Grey displays Romantic elements like the influence of landscape on mood, a theme of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, and also shares the domestic focus of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. But Anne’s novel shows stronger veins of social criticism woven into the romance, unlike her sisters’ novels. Maturity, for Anne’s heroine, is marked by self-possession, mastery over emotion, and adherence to principled behavior, themes that put Agnes Grey more firmly in the realm of the domestic novel. Anne’s attention to social mores and foibles has led to comparisons with Austen in her lifetime and after. The overall theme of a young person’s Education and Maturity can also classify the novel as a bildungsroman, which was a popular literary genre through the 19th century and beyond.

When Charlotte Brontë showed the poet Robert Southey some of her work, he infamously retorted, “Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be” (“Robert Southey and the Infamous Letter." annebronte.org. 7 May 2017). While this was a conservative attitude for the time, it was by no means a minority one. Most considered it permissible for a woman to publish only moral or didactic works on religious, historical, or domestic subjects, or to write light occasional verse the same way they might paint watercolors or delicate landscapes. As women were discouraged from holding professions, a woman pursuing any trade to make a living—including writing—made her less than respectable. The subject matter of novels, in particular, often exceeded the bounds of what was considered suitable for gently bred young women to know.

Some women nevertheless managed to make a literary mark. Elizabeth Carter was admired for her translation of the Greek philosopher Epictetus (1807), and Catherine Macauley was celebrated for her History of England (published 1763-1783). Letitia Landon’s poetry and novels (fl. 1824-34) were hugely admired, but her popularity also made her the subject of intense public speculation.

To avoid accusations of unseemliness—or, in some cases, to simply get their work considered for publication—many women of the late 18th and 19th centuries chose to publish under male pseudonyms. Fanny Burney had her brother James pose as the author of her first novel, Evelina (1778), though when the secret came out shortly after publication, she was largely admired for the novel’s success. Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, published in 1811, was modestly attributed as being “by a Lady.” George Sand chose a male pseudonym to compete in the male-dominated publishing world and because her romantic novels were as subversive as her public life; she liked to wear male attire, smoke, and take lovers after separating from her husband. The Brontë sisters were part of this trend, initially publishing under the names Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.

In her preface to a second printing of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which shocked readers due to its frank treatment of adultery, marital separation, alcoholism, and domestic abuse, Anne, as Acton, wrote that gender ought not to matter when deciding on a book’s quality: “I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author.” She went on to assert that “novels are, or should be, written for both men and women, to read,” and she thought a woman should be permitted to write on the same subjects that would be considered appropriate for a male author (Brontë, Anne. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Penguin Classics, 1979, p. 31).

The Brontë sisters chose their male pseudonyms to avoid publicity as well as the prejudice against female authors. When rumors circulated that the Bell brothers were the same person, Charlotte and Anne traveled to London to meet with Charlotte’s publisher, who up until then had no notion that Currer Bell was a woman. Charlotte went on to publish Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853) as Currer Bell. However, in the biographical note that introduces the 1850 publication of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey together, Charlotte clarifies the authorial identities of all three Bells, describing her sisters by name, reflecting on their work and personalities, explaining how the publication of their novels came to pass, and telling how each died tragically young.

The perception that women’s novels are concerned largely with romance or domestic matters and are thus more light-hearted, frivolous, or inconsequential than novels with broader and more realistic scopes has persisted. It led Mary Anne Evans to choose the pseudonym George Eliot in the mid-19th century. More recent examples of this phenomenon include best-selling romance author Nora Roberts, who publishes murder mysteries under the pseudonym J. D. Robb, and J. K. Rowling, who, wanting to venture out after writing the Harry Potter series, chose to publish detective fiction under the name Robert Galbraith.

Nineteenth-century English society adhered to strict notions of class and gender. Historically, the upper classes earned their wealth by owning land, and so men of income aspired to become gentlemen by acquiring property. Careers in the clergy, military, and law were considered respectable pursuits for gentleman’s sons; doctors, artists, and writers could be gentlemen as well. Merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and others who earned money via commerce belonged to the middle class. Below them were laborers, who had no wealth, and the lowest were the poor. One indicated one’s status through material display and by upholding the behaviors and attitudes deemed appropriate to one’s class. It was a virtue to move upward in class status and a great shame to descend to a lower class.

The Victorian ideal of womanhood encouraged by Queen Victoria (r. 1837-1901) prized modesty, docility, nurturing tendencies, and gentle nature. At the same time, class beliefs held that women of genteel status (gentlemen’s wives and daughters) should invest their energies in domestic matters. It was coarsening to be exposed to the public sphere, and earning money through labor or retail degraded one to the status of servant. There were very few respectable options for employment available to women of gentle birth: They could become paid companions, or they could become teachers, either employed by a school or by a family to teach children within their home as a governess.

Since the education of wealthy girls was designed to prepare them for domestic life as wives and mothers, the governess was expected to be gently reared and well-educated and possess a strong moral character. Her pupils were typically girls and sometimes young boys before they were sent to school. Topics of education might include languages, art, music, a passing knowledge of history, arithmetic, and etiquette. Her salary was typically not large, as she was provided room and board, but she was expected to pay for personal expenses like clothing and laundry.

The governess occupied an unusual position within the household. While she was expected to be a companion and preceptor, she was not considered part of the family; because of her class, she was not considered a servant either. This in-between status often led to a lack of supportive relationships and, sometimes, a lack of authority over her pupils—situations explored in Agnes Grey. In addition, there was often a concern that an unattached woman might enchant male members of the household, which is precisely what happens in Jane Eyre.

In 19th-century Britain, many families had the means to employ a governess; the British Library reports 25,000 governesses in the 1851 census. Her tenuous social position made the governess a popular figure in Victorian novels. William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, published serially in 1847 and 1848, also featured a governess heroine, though Becky Sharp is a schemer who tricks her employer’s son into marriage to improve her own circumstances.

In reality, few of the thousands employed as governesses found the position rewarding. Employment could be precarious, salaries allowed for little saving, and pupils could be difficult, as Agnes learns. Though she is referred to as a nanny, the character of Mary Poppins created by author P. L. Travers (1924) can be read as an imaginative response to the governess’s dilemma. Mary Poppins’s magical qualities, firm demeanor, and cohort of amusing friends make up for the isolation, friendlessness, disrespect, and helplessness to improve her charges that Agnes Grey exposes as sad aspects of the governess’s lot.